1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to information appliances, and more particularly to user interfaces for finding, collecting and acting upon hierarchically structured information.
2. Background Description
Since the advent of the personal computer there have been many efforts to improve the user interface, to make it easier for human beings to find the information they need and do with it what they want in an efficient manner.
Initial command line approaches were replaced by graphical user interfaces (GUI""s), as demonstrated at Xerox""s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) with the Xerox 8010 xe2x80x9cStarxe2x80x9d Information System in the 1970""s and implemented by the Apple Macintosh and by Microsoft Windows operating system in the 1980""s and by the Mosaic graphical web browser for the Internet in the 1990""s. These efforts have included graphical tools such as tool bars, pull down menus, pointers, icons, windows and desktops. These efforts are mostly task-oriented interfaces for desktop environments.
Other efforts have been directed toward information visualization techniques for handling large volumes of hierarchically arranged data. For example, researchers at PARC have considered a three dimensional technique in xe2x80x9cCone Trees: Animated 3D Visualizations of Hierarchical Informationxe2x80x9d in Reaching Through Technology, CHI ""91 Conference Proceedings, New Orleans, Louisiana, Apr. 2xe2x88x92May 2, 1991 (Association of Computing Machinery Special Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction, 1991 ACM 0-89791-383-3/91/0004/0189), pp. 189-194. This approach includes methods for focusing on smaller parts of a complex structure.
The foregoing prior art techniques illustrate methods of expanding human capacity to xe2x80x9cseexe2x80x9d large amounts of information, and to peruse this information looking for patterns and particular pieces of information. But they do not integrate within their methodologies techniques for accomplishing practical results beyond information visualization and retrieval.
Furthermore, while much progress has been made, the interfaces remain much too complicated for most users, and as a result the potential for mass access to the power of the computer has not been realized. There remains a need for a simple interface that is intuitive for users who are not familiar with computers, and yet powerfully enables these users to find, collect and act upon vast quantities of information made available by computer.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a more efficient means for interacting with information.
It is a further object of the invention to enable a user of information to quickly find and display information, and then to perform actions on the information.
It is also an object of the invention to seamlessly integrate computer functions and a user interface.
Another object of the invention is to provide an interface to information which is implicit and transparent, enabling the user to focus on the actual data.
It is also an object of the invention to overcome the distractions of the mechanics of manipulating the interface and limit the disruptions between human thought and computer functions.
Yet another object of the invention is to create an implicit means for navigating through information, orienting with respect to information, creating new information, and acting upon information.
A further object of the invention to allow the human user to easily make associations between information units, group information units, and act upon information units.
It is also an object of the invention to decrease the need for conventional graphical user interface devices such as tool bars, menus and icons.
It is a further object of the invention to present information to the user in a manner that complements the user""s natural thought processes about the information.
Another object of the invention is to extend to humans the power of the computer to retrieve, store and process vast amounts of information.
A further object of the invention is to provide means for handling information which are compatible with existing database means for organizing and storing information.
It is also an object of the invention to integrate information navigation and retrieval techniques with the accomplishment of practical results beyond information retrieval and visualization.
The invention provides an intuitive and simple method for packaging and dispensing a body of information which has been structured into a hierarchy of component units of information, the hierarchy being multi-hierarchical and having layers, where a unit in one layer can be related to a subordinate layer and a layer can be related to a superior unit in another layer. An information appliance is disclosed which is divided into a CONTENT area for viewing and interacting directly with the content of information units, which in the best mode implementation is further divided into a three-by-three array of content sub-areas, and a base or monitor area consisting of a CONTEXT area for identifying the immediate context of the information displayed in the content area, an IDENTITY area for identifying and storing the history of prior information contexts, and a DESIRE area for collecting and acting upon selected units of information, in accordance with the desires of the user.
The foregoing elements of an information appliance are used to implement two processes which characterize the simplicity and ease of use of the invention. One process is clarification: navigating a body of information to locate desired units of information which have been organized hierarchically. Representations of units of informationxe2x80x94preferably graphical images and/or textxe2x80x94at one level under one node in the hierarchy are displayed in the content area. The user can clarify a unit of information by selecting it, in which case the representation of the selected unit will be placed in the context area and units of information giving more detail about the selected unit, at the hierarchical level immediately below, will then be displayed in the content area. The former content of the context area is added to the identity area, which keeps a history of the user""s navigation. By selecting this identity area the user can go backward (with reference to the function of CLARIFICATION) up the hierarchy from a subordinate layer to a superior unit in another layer.
With each of the content sub-areas there is provided an association enabling operation of the second process: MEMORIZATION. In a typical implementation, this association is provided by graphically designating a small part of each of the content sub-areas (e.g. the upper left corner). By selecting this small part of the representation of the unit of information displayed in the content area, the selected unit is copied to the desire area where multiple units of information can be collected and then acted upon. The actions can include forming the collected units as a new subordinate layer for a unit of information within the information hierarchy, or forming a new unit of information within the information hierarchy, or routing the collected information to an external information base, such as by placing an order for selected items at a local market or ordering a custom sandwich from a local deli. For example, many typical consumer objectives can be accomplished by using overlays in accordance with the invention, overlays which themselves conform to the underlying processes of clarification and memorization.
The described methodology operates in a normal mode for reviewing a body of information, and is able to move seamlessly into an overlay mode for applying additional bodies of information which provide greater particularity with respect to the context of information units and with respect to the user""s desire to act upon this information.